Side Panel (offside)

This is the area behind the fridge, to access this panel I needed to first remove the interior units. From the outside it did not look that bad, inside was a completely different story.

External view of the “fridge” panel with visible holes

Interior view with units removed

The section between floor and side panel has completely rotted away

Removing more of the wooden floor revealed the extent of the rust

Inner sill rust

Some rust on the post seam

Close up of the inner sill rust

Hole in the side panel

Hole at the bottom of the inner sill

Parts of the floor had been completely eaten away by rust.

Extent of the sill and panel rust

After cleaning away as much rust as possible I took the van to John at VW Welding Services, he completed the work in three days. Alan Schofield provided the new sill and side panel and John fabricated the new floor part.

New sill and side panel from Alan Schofield

New interior floor sections

New sections coated in Waxoyl

I cleaned the panel thoroughly before coating with Electrox. It is not porous like normal primers so can be left as topcoat until I get round to repainting the whole van.

Side panel coated in Bilt Hamber Electrox

I brushed Hydrate 80 deep into all the seams to combat any remaining rust then used Tiger Seal to seal the seams.

Brushing Hydrate 80 deep into the panel seams

Rear Wheel Arches

Both wheel arches had a lot of rust. The rockwool insulation originally used by Autosleeper unfortunately holds water so any moisture getting inside sits against the panel and rots it from the inside out. Additionally there are no escape routes so only when it rusts all the way through can the water get out.

Once the two holes in at the top rear of the wheel arches have formed, the water then runs down into the rear platform trays and eats through them as well.

Platform Trays

As a consequence of water pooling in the wheel arches the platform trays on both sides had eaten through leaving huge holes. These were patched by John and covered in Waxoyl.

Offside platform tray rusted through

Interior view of platform tray

Repair plate welded to platform tray

Footwells

The offside footwell looked a bit dodgy so I gave it a good poke. It turned out to be lots of filler hiding a massive hole. As I didn’t have time to get this welded before the MOT I cleaned everything up as best I could, painted with Electrox and filled with aluminium mesh backing.

Success!

Sir Adventure passed the MOT. The only advisory was very slight play in the front offside wheel bearing.

Still to do…

There’s a hole below the nearside windscreen corner which I coated with Hydrate 80 some months back. I moved the dash out slightly to see how far the rust actually goes, it looks horrific but is manageable. I’m going to address this next year.

This is likely the cause of the rotten footwells so i’m going to have to keep an eye on any standing water in the meantime.